The The The Irish Irish Irish

CollectionCollectionCollection

The Ohio State University

Rare Books and

Manuscripts Library

Rare Books & Manuscripts Library 119 Thompson Library 1858 Neil Avenue Mall Columbus, Ohio 43210

http://library.osu.edu/sites/rarebooks/

Voice (614) 292-5938 Fax (614) 688-8417

Email: rarebooks@osu.edu

library.osu.edu

292-OSUL

Academia. Our Literary Tradition is something most Irish are

aware of and take pride in even though it is not always very

accessible here in Central Ohio. The Ohio State University

Library has the finest Irish Literature Collection most of us

will ever see. While Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century

works are well represented in The OSU Libraries Rare Books

and Manuscripts Irish Collection and are purchased when

available, it is in the Twentieth and Twenty-First century that

the Collection has its greatest strengths.

Although no library collection is ever comprehensive,

comprehension remains the goal for the printed works of

selected Irish writers. To that end, Ohio State holds the

principal editions of James Joyce, including two copies of the

Ulysses first edition. William Butler

Yeats is represented abundantly in the collection with over 189

Yeats related works including his famous play Cathleen Ni

Houlihan (1906) and such important poetical works as Celtic

Twilight (1893), A Vision (1925) and The Tower (1928).

Additionally, there are strong holdings of the native Irish press,

the Cuala Press, founded in 1902 as the Dun Emer Press, which

published Yeats and other Irish writers such as George Michael

Russell (A.E.), Lady Gregory, Oliver St. John Gogarty (the

model for Buck Mulligan in Joyce‟s Ulysses), Elizabeth Bowen

and others. Ohio State owns over 63 titles of the 77 titles

published by that historic press and it is a realistic goal to com-

plete the holdings.

Of especial note are Ohio State‟s holdings of Samuel Beckett,

winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize. Through a combination of

opportunity and insight Ohio State acquired a considerable amount of original Beckett

manuscripts in 1964. In 1996, Ohio State acquired a significant Beckett notebook that

included early drafts for Endgame and, significantly, a ten-line fragment intended for

Waiting for Godot that never appeared in the

published text.

Other manuscript materials have been added

to the Beckett Collection, but the 1996

acquisition of the Beckett Notebook marked a

watershed year for Ohio State in that it was

decided, at that time, to accelerate and focus

on the Irish Collection as one of the hallmark

collections at Ohio State. With the major

writers forming the core of the Irish

collection, particularly the Beckett

manuscript materials, Ohio State

established a firm-order approval plan with

Kenny‟s Bookstore of Galway, Ireland. Annual funds are committed for the purchase

of current and popular Irish writers such as Maeve Binchy or Roddy Doyle. Other

funds and exchange agreements are dedicated to developing

the historical Irish collections. A few examples will

illustrate how productively these funds have been used in

recent years.

With annually allocated Rare Book funds, Ohio State was

able to acquire, the 1926, first edition of Sean O‟Casey‟s

The Plough and the Stars; W. B. Yeats‟ 1897 The Secret

Rose; The Rebellion in Dublin, 1916, a photographic history

of the damage to Dublin during the Easter Rebellion; the

unpublished typescript of T. H. Nally‟s The Spancel of

Death, a play that was to open on Easter Tuesday, April 25,

1916, but was cancelled and never performed because of the

Easter Rebellion (though some critics note that the theatre

audience was thus spared even more pain), and manuscript

collections of contemporary Irish writers Ena May, Mick

Egan, and Mike Finn.

Irish Literature: A Cultural Legacy

Ireland has always been a nation of the book. Two of the greatest existing illuminated

manuscript books, the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels, were both produced

by Irish monks in the eighth century. In addition to preserving sacred texts, the Irish

were also recorders of their own native voices. The Irish literary tradition, that is Irish

literature in Gaelic, extends as far back as the seventh century when the combination of

a rich oral tradition and a nascent written language merged to form a

new literary aesthetics. From early lyric verses to more complex

narrative cycles, Irish literature has flourished from that time to

today.

To say that Ireland is a literary nation but touches the surface of that

small nation‟s contributions to world literature. Better it is to say

that, per capita, Ireland is the richest literary nation in the world, for

over the past 300 years the pantheon of major Irish writers stands

unrivalled.

The eighteenth century includes Jonathan Swift, satirist and

polemicist, most well known for Gulliver’s Travels and A Tale of a

Tub and Oliver Goldsmith, playwright and novelist, author of She

Stoops to Conquer and The Vicar of Wakefield. And, though Lawrence Sterne is usually

considered an English writer, he was born in Ireland and has been claimed back for

Ireland by writers and critics alike, particularly, James Joyce, who both considered

Sterne his „fellow-countryman‟ and whose Finnegan’s Wake was openly and profound-

ly influenced by Sterne‟s Tristram Shandy. These writers, though using the English

language, displayed a distinct Irish sensibility that distinguished them from their English

contemporaries. As Professor Andrew Carpenter of Trinity

University, Dublin, remarks: “Anarchy of mind and technique

mark . . . Irish writers of the eighteenth century and their

unsettled versions of the world brings forth writings absolutely

different from those of eighteenth-century England.”

The nineteenth century in Irish literature saw the emergence of

literature concerned with social realism as epitomized in the

novels of Maria Edgeworth, particularly Castle Rackrent and

The Absentee, tales of absentee landlords and land agents;

Ireland‟s first national poet in Thomas Moore, particularly his

Irish Melodies; and the drama of Oscar Wilde, more English in

sentiment, but Irish by heritage,

But it is in the twentieth century, with the Irish literary revival

and modernism, that Ireland truly establishes its pre-eminent literary reputation, a

reputation that continues into the twenty-first century. William

Butler Yeats, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett lay major claim as

outstanding creators of poetry, fiction and drama. Are there other

prominent Irish poets? Patrick Kavanagh, Paul Muldoon, Seamus

Heaney. Irish novelists? Elizabeth Bowen, Liam O‟Flaherty,

William Trevor. Irish dramatists? George Bernard Shaw, John

Millington Synge, Sean O‟Casey. There are more: Brendan

Behan, Sebastian Berry, Dermot Bolger, Ciaran Carson, Brian

Friel, Derek Mahon, Edna O‟Brien, Frank O‟Connor, Colm Toi-

bin – far too many to list here.

And, it is in the twentieth century and, to date, the twenty-first

century, that the Irish Collection in the Rare Books and

Manuscripts Library of The Ohio State University has its greatest

strengths.

The Development of the Collection

Over the 100 plus years of its existence, The Ohio State University Libraries had

acquired many books on Irish Literature and History but this was not done

systematically. We currently however have a commitment from the University to

expand this collection. This is a commitment both to build this collection which will

support the Academic program and actively conserve our Irish literary heritage and

make it available in Central Ohio. This goal has an importance beyond the confines of

Through credit funds and exchange Ohio State has acquired Samuel Beckett

correspondence with bookseller Dr. Jacob Schwartz; several rare, Irish political

pamphlets from 1916 to 1921; and an important eighteenth-century volume, including

Gleanings in America printed in 1814 in Cork and which may well be the only copy

currently held in an American library.

These are very selective examples of the hundreds of titles that

have been purchased since 2000. In addition, other special

collection libraries at other Ohio State support programming and

research of Irish culture, particularly drama at the Theatre

Research Institute and graphic materials at the Cartoon Research

Library. For instance, in 2002, the Theatre Research Institute

and the Department of Theatre sponsored a visit to Ohio State by

Dublin‟s renowned Gate Theatre, which performed Beckett‟s

Waiting for Godot and offered student workshops. More

recently, in 2005, the Cartoon Research Library acquired the

complete first series, 76 issues from May 1870 to October 1871

of Zozimus, an illustrated humor magazine published in Dublin.

The Department of English has outstanding scholars in the area

of Irish literature. The importance of Irish writing to Ohio State,

then, is interdisciplinary: a cooperative undertaking that further speaks to a strong

commitment for the preservation of Irish cultural history.

Planning for the Future: An Irish Endowment

Despite the scholastic commitment to Irish materials, however, our

budget allocations are flexible and dependent upon continued

support by Library administration and legislative allocations. Even

a flat budget loses purchasing power due to inflation and in these

financially precarious times a flat budget is probably more than we

can hope for. If it were possible to establish an endowment for the

purchase of Irish literature at Ohio State, there would be two

principal and obvious results. First, at whatever level, the

endowment would help buffer the growth of the Irish Collection

against the vicissitudes of funding support for higher education,

generally, and libraries, particularly, and the Rare Books and

Manuscripts Library, specifically. Secondly, the very fact of

having a funded account means that an assessment and account of

the Irish collection must be taken regularly, and cannot be

transferred, ensuring a living presence for the collection.

Once an endowment is in place, moreover, then individuals or groups make may

contributions to that endowment for any amount – even a dollar. The minimum size for

an endowment at Ohio State is $50,000. However, even before a

endowment is in place donations can be dedicated to its

establishment through the Office of Development at Ohio State.

This is a goal we can work up to and a clear opportunity for any and

all supporters of Irish literature.

Individual change can cause institutional change. People retire

and/or move on and commitments can change without any

supporting structure. Although we hope we leave an honorable

imprint upon our ventures while we have the opportunity, we hope

as well to leave the framework for growth and development after we

are gone. It has been a truism in the field of collection development

that we build upon strengths and the stronger the Irish Collection

becomes, especially when it is supported by endowed funds and the

local, regional and state communities, the greater the impetus to continue to build upon

that strength.

For more information contact:

Geoffrey Smith, Professor and Head

Rare Books and Manuscripts Library

Smith.1@osu.edu

614-292-5938